Thermally Augmented Cork-based Thin Insulation Coating (TACTIC)

该战略项目将利用现有的CorkSol产品Thermocork，这是一种基于软木的可持续绝缘材料，并使用纳米添加剂对其进行重新配方，以提高其热性能。热软木易于安装，成本效益高，可用于对难以处理的房屋进行绝缘。大约有770万英国房屋是无隔热的坚固墙体建筑住宅，这些房屋中的许多居民遭受燃料匮乏的痛苦，这意味着他们很难取暖，因为热量损失导致高昂的燃料费。处于燃料贫乏状态的人更有可能遭受潜在的呼吸道健康问题，这会增加新冠肺炎等病毒的严重性。为隔热性能差的房屋提供经济高效的解决方案将改善很大一部分英国人口的潜在健康状况。Covid 19也对建筑和家居装修行业产生了重大影响。在截至2020年5月的三个月里，由于Covid大流行，私营部门住房维修和维护市场下降了39.8%。提供一种新的创新材料，用于对难以处理的房屋进行绝缘，将有助于为私人住宅和社会住宅创造新的市场机会。TACTIC将重新配置CorkSol现有的Thermocork绝缘系统，添加候选纳米添加剂以增强其热性能，使10 mm涂层具有与50 mm矿棉相同的等效性，并以比替代产品更低的成本应用。新配方将在实验室和现实生活中进行测试，并将使用CorkSol现有的气溶胶喷雾方法进行应用。该项目还将研究这种新材料的市场，并制定营销计划，以帮助激发人们对难处理房屋这一核心目标市场的兴趣，特别是在社会住房部门。项目合作伙伴是CorkSol，这是一家成功的英国公司，拥有一种可持续来源的现有产品，并由经过批准和培训的申请者网络和蒂赛德大学(Teesside University)组成，该大学的学者拥有进行产品重组和测试所需的技术技能。该项目的成果将是具有增强的热性能的下一代Thermocork，可以用于难以处理的、无绝缘的房屋，这些房屋是英国住房存量的很大一部分。

The TACTIC project will take the existing CorkSol product Thermocork, a sustainable cork based insulating material and reformulate it with nano additives to improve its thermal performance. Thermocork is easily and cost effectively installed and can be used to insulate hard to treat houses. Around 7.7 million UK houses are uninsulated, solid wall construction dwellings and many residents in these houses suffer from fuel poverty, meaning that they struggle to heat their homes due to high fuel bills, caused by heat loss. People in fuel poverty are more likely to suffer underlying respiratory health issues, which increases the severity of viruses such as Covid-19\. Providing a cost effective solution to poorly insulated houses will improve the underlying health of a large proportion of he UK population.Covid 19 has also had a significant impact in the construction and home improvement industry. The private sector housing repairs and maintenance market saw a 39.8% drop in the three months to May 2020 as a result of the Covid pandemic. Providing a new innovative material that can be used to insulate hard to treat housing to will help generate a new market opportunity for both private homes and also social housing.TACTIC will reformulate CorkSol's existing Thermocork insulation system with the addition of candidate nano additives to enhance its thermal performance to allow a 10mm coating to have the same equivalence as 50mm of mineral wool and to be applied at a lower cost than alternatives. The new formulation will be tested at both laboratory and real-life scale, where it will be applied using CorkSol's existing aerosol spray method. The project will also examine the market for this new material and produce marketing plan to help generate interest in the core target market of hard to treat homes, especially those in the social housing sector.The project partners are CorkSol, a successful UK company that has in place an existing product that is sourced sustainably and a network of approved, trained applicators and Teesside University, whose academics have the technical skills needed to work on the product reformulation and testing needed. The project outcome will be a next generation of Thermocork with enhanced thermal properties that can be used on the hard to treat, uninsulated homes that are large part of the UK housing stock.